Why has the 1911 census been digitised?
Mark Pearsall: One of the reasons the records have been digitised and made available online is because that makes them much easier to search. And also allows greater access to people throughout the country and overseas. There would be great interest in commonwealth countries in the United States, where people have ancestors from the UK, looking for English and Welsh ancestry. And it does actually work out cheaper. Although you have to pay to search the census returns, it’s much easier to actually find information from the digitised database than actually having to plough through reels of film or fiche as you did, with earlier censuses in the past.
